Bump and Update: It sounds like the Senate is getting ready to sell us down the river. They report being close on a compromise. From the quote below, it sounds like it's all done but defining the "extreme circumstances" that would allow a Democrat to filibuster a Supreme Court or other judicial nominee. In other words, if that's all they are "struggling with," they've already caved in on letting almost of all of Bush's judges in, including Owen and Rogers Brown.

"I don't know whether we're 10 percent there or 70 percent there. It's still very fluid," said Sen. Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat. "There are language issues and conceptual issues that people are still struggling with."

If it goes down this way, it's a huge loss for the Democrats. They will have put a bunch of extremists on the federal bench, and only preserved the right to filibuster in "extreme circumstances" and more importantly, only through the 109th Congress. All of the Supreme Court justices except perhaps Rehnquist can hold out until 2007 - and then the Republicans will make the same move to end the filibuster they are making now and we'll be back at ground zero.

I'm sorry to see Colorado Ken Salazar be one of the leaders of the effort.

Check out Move-On's latest ad (top left) with Bill Frist as the hooded villain - it's wonderful:

One Senator, seduced by a dark vision of absolute power, seeks to destroy this fabled order, replacing fair judges with far right clones.

Stop Senator Frist. Save our Courts. Save the Republic. Move-On rocks.

Update: Check out Media Matters Top Ten Filibuster Falsehoods.

Here are some portions of Sen. Harry Reid's floor statement today on the proper role of the Senate in Advice and Consent. Bottom Line: Bush and Frist want the Senate to Consent and ignore duty to advise. It's not going to happen. The Senate is not a rubber stamp for the President or the radical right.

....The filibuster is not a gimmick. It has been part of our nation’s history for two centuries. It is one of the vital checks and balances established by our Founding Fathers. It is not a gimmick.

Also, Republicans have not been accurate in describing the use of the filibuster. They say the defeat of a handful of President Bush’s judicial nominees is unprecedented. In fact, hundreds of judicial nominees in American history have been rejected by the Senate, many by filibuster. Most notably, the nomination of Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice of the United States was successfully filibustered in 1968. And during the Clinton Administration, over 60 judicial nominees were bottled up in the Judiciary Committee and never received floor votes.

Blogads has initiated The Law Blog Ad Network. It allows advertisers looking for legal blogs to find them easily and with one click, place their ads on multiple blogs. For advertisers, it eliminates the guesswork in finding their target audience.

We're starting small, with eight law blogs. We're trying to attract advertisers of law products, so we're keeping it to lawyers who principally write about legal matters. In other words, if you're a lawyer who blogs mostly about food, you should join the Food Ad Network, not the Law Blog Network.

We will be adding more blogs to the network. Ideally, we'd like to have at least 25. Joining is by invitation, and you will have to carry a link to the network on your site. You also should have some decent traffic numbers on your site and a reliable counter.

You can be a member of multiple networks, for example, I'm also a member of the new Liberal Blogs Ad Network, which launched last week with 44 blogs. Other examples are the LA Blog network, the baseball network and the gay network.

Henry Copeland, the founder of Blogads, believes as the number of blogs continues to grow, ad networks will be the wave of the future.

If you're interested in joining the Law Blog Ad Network, send me an e-mail with any questions.

by TChris

The right wing's misguided war against judges is disturbing to those who believe that an independent judiciary is necessary to protect the public from abuses of power in the other branches of government. The war against judges, fueled by the hate-mongering rhetoric of the right, is also disturbing to judges. One who has good reason to be disturbed: Joan Lefkow, whose husband and mother were killed by a disgruntled litigant "whose decade-long legal crusade against doctors, lawyers and the government was dismissed by the judge last year."

Judge Lefkow knows too well that those who demonize judges are creating a climate that will lead to more tragedy.

The judge ... said recent attacks on the judiciary by the televangelist Pat Robertson and by some members of Congress fostered disrespect for judges that "can only encourage those who are on the edge or on the fringe to exact revenge on a judge who displeases them."

While the New York Times is gearing up to charge online readers for its op-ed pages, the Wall Street Journal earns our appreciation by taking the opposite tack and providing free access to articles that might have blogger appeal. Today's example: A new poll that shows Americans have a sharply diminished view of Congress' performance:

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that disapproval of Congress's performance is higher than it has been since 1994, the year voters swept Democrats out of power on Capitol Hill. Americans have grown gloomier about the nation's direction, the economy and Iraq, and by 65%-17% they say Congress doesn't share their priorities.

Even the poll results can be viewed for free here.(pdf).

Los Angeles has a new mayor-elect, Antonio Villaraigosa. Villaraigosa beat current mayor James Hahn. In 2001, it was the other way around.

By overwhelming margins, Villaraigosa captured Democrats, liberals and younger voters, according to a Los Angeles Times exit poll. He also won a majority of San Fernando Valley residents, union members and Jewish voters. His support among blacks more than doubled from what he won in his 2001 mayoral contest against Hahn -- though it fell just shy of half.

But it was Villaraigosa's huge support among Latinos that turned his victory into a landslide, ushering Hahn out of office after a lone term. The city councilman sparked a surge in Latino turnout and won 84 percent of the Latino vote.

It was James Hahn who hired Bill Bratton to run the LAPD. Many thought if Villaraigosa won, Bratton would return to New York and run for Mayor. But today, after a one hour meeting between Bratton and Villaraigosa, Bratton announced he is staying on as Chief.

by TChris

Ever eager to grab more power while evading judicial scrutiny, the Bush administration wants to give the FBI the power to subpoena business and financial records without satisfying a judge that the records are likely to reveal evidence of a crime. Federal investigators would avoid judicial review of document seizures by declaring that the records are needed in a terrorism investigation. The proposal is consistent with the administration's philosophy: utter the word terrorism and, while everyone ducks, suspend the Constitution.

The proposal, part of a broader plan to extend antiterrorism powers under the USA Patriot Act, was concluded in recent days by Republican leaders on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in consultation with the Bush administration, Congressional officials said.

The folks who brought us the Patriot Act assure us that the proposed side-stepping of judicial review is nothing to worry about. In fact, they can't think of a "coherent argument" against it. Here's one:

Bad news travels fast. Rep. James Sensenbrenner's proposed new drug bill, which reads like a parody but unfortunately isn't, with its provisions providing for two year jail terms for college kids who don't snitch on a transaction within 24 hours of observing or learning of it-- and five years for passing a joint to a person who has recently been released from drug treatment--is even news in Australia. From a Jack Marx column in the Sydney Morning Herald:

In case you haven’t noticed, the war on drugs is accelerating. In America, a controversial bill - H.R. 1528, Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005 – gets a hearing again this week. The bill is troublesome for a number of reasons, which you can read about here and here and here. But the most alarming aspect of H.R. 1528 is that it provides for a two year jail sentence for anyone who observes or come across information about drug distribution near learning institutions – that’s universities and colleges, too - and does not report it to authorities within 24 hours and provide full assistance investigating, apprehending, and prosecuting those involved. This is an interesting proposition, because if it were enacted in Australia, almost everybody I know would be going to jail, and those who remained outside wouldn’t be worth knowing.

Meet Richard Leggett, age 53. He builds coffins at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. He's never been busier. (Wall St. Journal, subscription required.)

At the Angola state penitentiary here, Richard Leggett, a yellow pencil tucked behind his right ear, put the molding on his latest creation: a 7-foot coffin . He worked with some urgency, sewing and stapling the white bedding inside. He always likes to keep three coffins in stock, so he doesn't run out.

As the prison's coffin maker, Mr. Leggett, 53 years old, has been busy. The prison has needed one or two of his caskets in each of the last five weeks. At Angola, 97% of inmates now die in prison, up from about 80% a decade ago. "I'll probably end up making my own," he says.

Criticism of Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown is not new, at least not on TalkLeft. From our archives, and worth re-reading:

• 9/4/02...Priscilla Owen: The Wrong Judge
• 6/14/03...Janice Rogers Brown for Supreme Court?
• 8/28/03...Report on Janice Rogers Brown
• 10/14/03: Next Judicial Battle: Janice Rogers Brown

Externally, these are good picks:

• 10/22/03...Sen. Patrick Leahy's Statment on Janice Rogers Brown
• 10/21/03...Alliance for Justice Opposes Janice Rogers Brown.
• 4/21/05...PFAW: Priscilla Owen: Remaking the Law for the Radical Right(pdf)
• 5/12/05...Salon...Priscilla Owen and Willie Searcy

These judges are appointed for life. The D.C. Circuit, for which Janice Rogers Brown is a nominee, is considered a direct line for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. If you care about preserving the integrity and independence of the judiciary during your children's lifetimes, get on the phone now and let your Senators know you oppose any compromise on these nominations. You can reach them all at 202-224-3121. Direct line numbers are here.

British Parliament member George Galloway has had enough and he's not going to take it anymore. This week, he blasted a Senate sub-committee for alleging he improperly profited in the Iraqi-food-for-oil scandal.

Stockphrase at Daily Kos has posted the text of his remarks (full version here):

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.
I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.
I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.
I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

As always, Crooks and Liars has the video.